夢とこそ言ふべかりけれ世の中は
うつつあるものと思ひけるかな
うつつあるものと思ひけるかな
- Roma-ji
-
Yume to koso iubekarikere yo no naka wa utsutsu aru mono to omoikeru kana
- English Translation
-
As a dream, indeed,
it ought to have been called,
this world of ours;
and yet I always thought
that it was something real.
- Meaning
- This world should have been called a dream, and yet I had always thought it was something real.
- Commentary
-
Book Twenty Lament Poems 1318
Headnote: "Composed at the place where an acquaintance had died"
The poet says that this world should have been called a dream, yet he had thought it real. The headnote shows it was composed at the place where someone he knew had died. Faced with an acquaintance's death, he sings of the shock and grief of realizing that the world he believed solid was in truth like a fleeting dream. Following the preceding poem, 1317, it is another of Tsurayuki's poems mourning the death of someone close.
The author, written as "Tsurayuki," is Ki no Tsurayuki, the leading compiler of the Kokinshū, who wrote its kana preface and the Tosa Diary. He is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.
It is also included among the laments of the Kokinshū, with the third line "yo no naka ni."
First line, "yume to koso," means "as a dream," with the binding particle "koso" resolved by the perfective "kere" in the second line.
Second line, "iubekarikere," means "it ought to have been called," and the poem breaks after this second line, the lines that follow being inverted.
Third line, "yo no naka wa," means "this world."
Fourth line, "utsutsu aru mono to," means "as something real," a hypermetric line of six syllables, setting "utsutsu," reality, against "yume," dream, in the first line.
Final line, "omoikeru kana," means "I had thought," with "kana" exclamatory.
- Author
- Ki no Tsurayuki
- Source
- Shui Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Asu shiranu waga mi to omoedo kurenu ma no kyō wa hito koso kanashikarikere
- Next Poem
-
Ie ni ikite waga ya o mireba tamazasa no hoka ni okikeru imo ga komakura